To whatever “friends” Mr. Lincoln might have dealt a “blow,” it is certain that these angry gentlemen, whether “friends” or otherwise, were dealing him a very severe blow at a very critical time; and if its hurtfulness was diminished by the very fury and extravagance of their invective, they at least were entitled to no credit for the salvation thus obtained.  They were exerting all their powerful influence to increase the chance, already alarmingly great, of making a Democrat the next President of the United States.  Nevertheless Mr. Lincoln, with his wonted imperturbable fixedness when he had reached a conviction, did not modify his position in the slightest degree.

Before long this especial explosion spent its force, and thereafter very fortunately the question smouldered during the rest of Mr. Lincoln’s lifetime, and only burst forth into fierce flame immediately after his death, when it became more practical and urgent as a problem of the actually present time.  The last words, however, which he spoke in public, dealt with the matter.  It was on the evening of April 11, and he was addressing in Washington a great concourse of citizens who had gathered to congratulate him upon the brilliant military successes, then just achieved, which insured the immediate downfall of the Confederacy.  In language as noteworthy for moderation as that of his assailants had been for extravagance, he then reviewed his course concerning reconstruction and gave his reasons for still believing that he had acted for the best.  Admitting that much might justly be said against the reorganized government of Louisiana, he explained why he thought that nevertheless it should not be rejected.  Concede, he said, that it is to what it should be only what the egg is to the fowl, “we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it.”  He conceived that the purpose of the people might be fairly stated to be the restoration of the proper practical relations between the seceded States and the Union, and he therefore argued that the question properly took this shape:  Whether Louisiana could “be brought into proper practical relation with the Union sooner by sustaining or by discarding her new state government."[59]

By occurrences befalling almost immediately after Mr. Lincoln’s death his opinions were again drawn into debate, when unfortunately he could neither explain nor develop them further than he had done.  One of the important events of the war was the conference held on March 28, 1865, at Hampton Roads, between the President, General Grant, General Sherman, and Admiral Porter, and at which no other person was present.  It is sufficiently agreed that the two generals then declared that one great final battle must yet take place; and that thereupon Mr. Lincoln, in view of the admitted fact that the collapse of the rebellion was inevitably close at hand, expressed great aversion and pain at the prospect of utterly useless bloodshed,